Don't you think almost anything can be funny? Almost anything.

Writers like Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Russell Banks, Carolyn Chute, Alice Walker, so many others that I read coming up as a writer, that helped form my ideas of what it means to be American - and an American writer. I'm always in conversation with them.

I've heard a lot of editors and agents say, "If the book is good, it will get published." I totally disagree with that.

There are so many people who write really interesting work and try super hard and still don't get published.

I love ghost stories, I love to read them, and I love the idea of being haunted.

Don't you think almost anything can be funny? Almost anything.

I think someone who writes a ghost story probably needs to believe it in some way.